• Tuesday, after a three-drink lunch, Robert goes out to Newark for the funeral. He wears dark glasses, the ones Kathy gave him, and tries not to look at anyone. He keeps his head down, hoping he’ll be lost in the crowd. More than two hundred people show up; only a few knew her, the rest read her story in the papers and want to see the end of it. Robert is sweaty and nervous. He can’t glance at the coffin without seeing Kathy naked, crawling over the bed toward him, her breasts swinging, grinning at him in that way of hers, doing something he never thought of before. That or he starts blaming himself again, knowing he put her in the ground.
He can finally think it. Yes, I did it. I killed her. . . .
But two people come up and say almost the same thing, “We understand, man, it wasn’t really your fault. She went too far.”
They look at him as if he’s a hero for having this flashy girlfriend. How could he know she’d get nuts and go running up to Westchester to kill his wife? The crazy broad. Show some class.
He’s afraid to acknowledge this attitude or say anything for fear it’ll vanish. He just nods grimly.
The same slant is in a lot of the coverage. He thought everyone would be against him. It’s only four days since it happened, but people are mostly sympathetic. Some of the ones at work sort of joking with him: Now we know why you were so crazy. . . . Hardly anyone thinks he’s part of it, because then there would have been two against the wife, and she wouldn’t have made it. But the crazy girlfriend, by herself, hell, she’s bound to make a mess of it.
At the end of the service a woman comes up to him. “We have a lot in common,” she says.
“Really? What?”
“She was my best friend. Yours, too, I gather. My name’s Louise.”
“Your best friend? She never said much about her friends.”
“Yeahhhh,” Louise says. “She was ready to move on.” The woman looks at him with a crooked grin. Squaring her shoulders some, making him notice her build. He looks at it, then shakes his head. Jesus, Robert thinks, it’s weird. Like we’re supposed to jump on the ground and screw in memory of Kathy.
“Listen,” Robert says nervously, “that guy there with the police? At least I think they’re police.” Robert points to the edge of the crowd, a tough-looking black-haired man standing between two men in gray suits. “He keeps looking at me. You know him?”
Louise snickers. “That’d be Keith.”
“Keith?”
“Her ex, you know.”
“Really?”
“Didn’t mention Keith either, did she?”
“No, she didn’t. Not by name.”
“She was ready to move on, like I said. You were her ticket. Seriously.” She leans closer, grinning, letting him smell her perfume, maybe look down between her breasts. “How’d you make such a mess of it?”
Robert stares at her with a horror he can’t conceal. He can’t get out a word, finally turns and jogs away from her. Louise looks after him with a certain disgust on her face.